Regret
by dans tous nos reves
Summary: Quick one-shot from Sookie's POV. Sookie wakes up to find a rare snow shower coating her native Louisiana. She wants to enjoy it but can't because it reminds her of someone she wishes could enjoy it with her. Sorry, again, new at summarizing.


Regret: Sookie's POV. Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the Southern Vampire Mysteries. Those rights belong to Charlaine Harris. I'm just biding my time until the next novel, and playing with her characters a bit.

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Look out the window and accept it. You know you should be excited about the rare snow storm gracing the typically rain-soaked Louisiana winter. You know you should want to step outside in and revel in it, letting the tiny flakes cling to your hair and eyelashes. You dream about this kind of day. You could even ask Amelia to run around in it with you. You know she would. But you won't, anyway. You know you won't enjoy it because he would have. You know you won't enjoy it because he cannot.

It has been almost a year since he disappeared from your life. _He waited too long!_ You would scream to anyone willing to listen, anyone willing to let you rage until you'd absolved yourself of your own guilt. Even Sam silently bore your venom until tears ran down his face. He may not have liked it, but he knew how you really felt. He scooped you up into a warm bear hug and held you until your body gave out. He gently rested you on your couch, covering you with the quilt.

The quilt had been a mistake. Seeing the ugly fabric square had ripped open another fresh set of emotional gashes and wounds, and you'd stomped and screamed around your house while Sam, Amelia, Bill, and Jason fixed their gazes to the floor. No one wanted to incur your ire and wrath. _How could he do this to me!? _You'd scream, over and over until your throat was hoarse. _How could he just leave me here!?_ The reality of it all seared through your heart like a burning lance. The only one, since Gran, you had always expected to be there was . . . gone.

How could you possibly go on?

For an entire week the world was a muted and colorless gray. There was no joy or color to be found in the sunrise, or magic to be found in the sunset. You floated around between your bed and the kitchen, a weeping specter. So many tried to get you to eat, speak, or sleep, but you fought. You pushed them all away. Too embroiled with anger to rest but too addled with sadness to live, you existed in a state of limbo.

It was during the second week of your mourning that She came to visit you. You almost staked her on the spot, on your own front porch. _How could you let this happen to him!? _You'd screamed until the blood ran down her cheeks. She was a cold vampire presumably devoid of feelings and emotions, but you could still feel the pain rippling out of her like waves in a tidal pool. _Stop,_ she'd begged. _I would have given my life for his. Surely you must know this_. She'd whispered repeatedly as she sunk to one knee. She looked so small and helpless this deadly predator. You had no choice but to take her in and comfort her.

The first thing you noticed about your friend was that she was dirty and her clothes were tattered and speckled with old blood. The second thing you noticed were the trails of blood tears streaking down her face and neck. The third thing you noticed were the ghosts of her Master dancing around in her empty eyes. You held out your hand, and took hold of her palm. The pale white of her death contrasted against the lush peach of your life. You drew up a warm bath for death, and you gently washed her face, hands and hair. She relaxed at the gentle familiarity of your touch. You brought her a TrueBlood. She reluctantly accepted, and then drank. Slowly the color began returning to her cheeks, and the magic of a second life to her eyes.

How could she possibly go on?

_I don't know what I'm to do now_, she whispered. _I've been without him before . . . but I've always known I could go back to him_. She looked into your eyes and asked, _Where do I go from here?_ You didn't know how to answer that question. You couldn't even answer that question for yourself. She had her demons, you had your own. She had her guilt, you had yours.

_I thought he would be around forever_, you'd added. _I was supposed to be the fragile mortal girl, and he the powerful immortal_. She shook her head and all the emptiness flew out of her. _No one is beyond death, Sookie, no one. _Her tone was forceful, matter-of-fact. As if this simple declaration had taken all her energy, she leaned back in the tub and let her head rest against the side, letting her eyes close as you held her hand. _Still, _you'd persisted; _he was always the smartest, strongest, and bravest of all of us. That's not to mention the oldest with the best instinct for survival_.

A small smile curved around the edges of his Child's lips. _No,_ she said, _you were always the bravest, and in some ways the strongest. That is why we were all drawn to you, why we _all_ would have died to protect you_. But in the end it was he, the love of your life who had died to protect you. You told her that it wasn't good enough. You told her you thought he should have gone on, outlasted us all. _Why did you wait?_ She asked you then. You didn't understand what she meant.

_All of those games_, she said, _why did you play them?_ _I would ask him the same thing_, she'd said, _but he is not here_. _Why did you not go to him when he called? _Your face flushed crimson as the anger crept through your veins. _Why did I wait?! _You'd roared, forgetting that his Child had not been privy to your many outbursts over the course of the last two weeks. _You're suggesting it was I who waited?! He never called! Not once!_ And you told yourself that was the truth. Six months had passed from the time of the Nevada takeover, and he had never called.

_Sookie_, she replied, _I could feel him calling you through the bond_. _He was scared, confused and conflicted. He thought you would resent him. He'd hoped you would just go to him_. Her usually impassive face was etched with pain and sadness as she said this. None of it made any sense. Since when, you thought, was the famed 1000+ Viking warrior vampire too conflicted to use more direct tactics? You asked her that too. _My Master was never the same when it came to you. He never knew which way was up or down when it came to you. He was like a little boy who'd unearthed a precious treasure. At first it made me sick, then it made me hope, and then it made me frightened for all of our safety. I thought you could walk away from him, but that he could not walk away from you. I thought you would be his undoing. _

You felt the tears roll down your cheeks because you knew she was right. You'd felt his turmoil and fear through the bond. You'd known he would never force you. He'd called to you, in his own way, and you, being stubborn as you are, ignored him. For your own pride, you'd refused to yield to his calls. His life wasn't in danger, you figured, why should you go running for his every beck-and-call. _I couldn't Pam, _you'd said, _I couldn't belong to anyone. I couldn't belong to him_. With that explanation she'd risen from the tub and put on the clothes you'd given her. You didn't even look up when you heard the front door shut. You didn't look up when another person walked out of your life forever. You knew that part of her blamed you for his death just as part of you blamed her. You knew those two parts would never reconcile.

You'll never reconcile the two parts of yourself that conflicted against each other when it came to your Viking.

You knew that he always was _your_ Viking. He had always been yours, waiting there for you to accept and take him. This part acknowledged what he (and everyone else) always knew—that you were his and he was yours, and that was the way it should have been. The other part of you, the louder part, railed against that notion. This part knew that you could never accept him as he was, and that you could never give yourself over to him. Part of you even wanted to hurt him as punishment for binding you to him—and not just for the blood bond, but for the emotional bond as well. You resented him for making you feel when you didn't want to feel, the same that he resented you for making him care when he didn't want to care.

How are you supposed to remember him?

He was a vampire. He was staked in the back by his enemies while defending his love, his Child, and his livelihood. He left no remains, and no final resting place to visit. At his (final) death, he left you everything and nothing all at the same time. But, that was what you two had always been—everything and nothing. He'd left you most of his fortune, except his share of Fangtasia. He'd left you the trinkets of his youth, including his broadsword. He'd left you a tender note and memories. He'd also left a yawning hole in that corner of your soul where the hum of his bond once connected his life to yours. The emptiness of his place in the bond has yet to diminish, and instead expands daily threatening to swallow you whole.

The gaping wound holds no connection to, or memory of, him. The throbbing emptiness holds only regret. You watch the snow cover the ground like salt over an open wound. Your memories of him are the same as the reality—everything and nothing. You should go out in it, revel in it, and embrace it. But you won't. You're too stubborn. Maybe when the emptiness has finally swallowed you whole, you'll fill it up with something besides regret.


End file.
